Change in My Pocket Going Jingalingaling

I should be working right now. On Tuesday I’ll be leaving on a jet plane, off to Calgary for a week. (Sarah’s got a head-start on the trip. She’s in Vancouver right now, hanging with Beth, and they’ll both be flying into Cowtown about an hour before I do.) Work-wise, I’ve got a fair bit to get done between now and then. The smart thing—what I’d planned—was to work today and tomorrow between nine and two. I work better in the morning. I’m efficient. And I know that if I don’t start by noon, things will take me twice as long and I’ll drag it out and ruin my whole damn day. But here I am, well past noon, and the only thing I’ve accomplished is Sweet F.A. (Not entirely true. I have downed a pot of coffee. And deodorized.)

But this isn’t a post about work, what it’s actually about is how Sarah’s away and I’ve got fifty dollars of allowance burning a hole in my pocket. If you didn’t know, you probably suspected—Sarah controls the purse strings in this family. It’s not something I’m ashamed of, I don’t feel emasculated by it. In any good relationship, you play to your strengths. Finances aren’t one of mine. And it’s not a matter of my not being able to comprehend money matters, or just being terrible with arithmetic, my real problem is that I piss away money on stupid shit.

I don’t have expensive tastes or costly hobbies, so I don’t drop coin in large amounts. It’s the infinite number of small things that get me. If it weren’t for CDs, DVDs, books, coffee, booze, and Tim Horton’s chocolate chip muffins, I’d never be in danger of spending money ever. Sadly, these things are my crack. The solution is that I’m never allowed to carry money with me. Don’t think of this as Sarah being mean—it’s largely a self-imposed policy. If I have it, I’ll spend it. If I don’t, I won’t miss it. Before she left, we negotiated my allowance, and she was willing to give me more but I didn’t want it. I might end up having the willpower to hold on to it, but by the time Tuesday rolls around I’d rather have blown fifty bucks on snacky-cakes than one-hundred.

Having actual cash in my pocket is the hard part. I’m never tempted to whip out my credit card for sundry items, and if there’s a twenty with my name on it in a jar at home, it doesn’t call out to me. But if I’ve got that money on me—oh baby! Just this morning, I walked down to the library and I popped my allowance into my wallet just in case, and I think the main reason I didn’t buy anything was because the only places I passed were a tattoo parlour, a Day’s Inn, and a Middle Eastern grocery store (and we’ve already got a pantry full of crab juice and Khlav Kalash).

One of the biggest benefits of this arrangement is that it makes Sarah have to deal with even the simplest of financial transactions. I drive the car, I push the cart, I hold the table, but Sarah’s the one waiting in line; she’s the one counting out correct change. It’s a sweet deal. I’m not quite sure what I provide to her in return. No, I am sure what I provide in return: nothing. In the ledger of our marriage, I’ve been cooking the books for years.